A thousand people arrived while Drake stood there on the field. A local ship came down and landed with another thousand. Two of his men, gigantic, came dashing up with another thousand clinging to them whom they had collected in the near-by rural sections. Men and women, and children huddled in their parents' arms. Some had bundles of clothes, which for all this clinging to the back of a giant in the last hours of the end of a world they still were reluctant to abandon. Families, trudging aimlessly along country roads in the night or driving carts piled with household treasures, had been seized by these friendly giants and brought to the vehicle. A lump was in Drake's throat. These few thousands of people, arriving here to what might or might not be ultimate safety--but there were ten million people here on this doomed little world! Drake wondered how long he dared hold the vehicle here. The night itself was wildly crazy. He saw the moon vanish with a lunge. The stars were abnormally swaying. A wind was springing up from the lake, a violent, aimless wind. The water lashed against the shore. The arriving giants reported storms in the other hemisphere. The sea had mounted and submerged many of the islands. Then the next dawn came. The sun swung crazily up. Swiftly, abnormally mounting to the zenith. And there, against all reason of nature, it seemed to hang motionless; for an hour perhaps. Then it dropped visually sidewise, and came again, swaying like a pendulum. The Togaro vehicle showed only occasionally now as a distant blur among the stars. Mita was wildly lurching. This was not day and night. A chaos! Drake knew it was near the end. The sun presently hung motionless. It was growing hotter. Its heat and fiercely intensified light beat down. Soon they would be intolerable. "A few hours more, Alt. That's all we can stay here." Drake was horribly worried over Ahlma. She had pleaded: "I am experienced with the drug. You must let me go, Drake. Let me get large--I will bring some of them back to safety--" In his harassed activity he had yielded, had stood watching her huge robed figure running off into the night. She had not yet returned. A hundred times he had felt that he must drop everything and go after her. But he could not be spared; nor could he spare Alt. Twice Drake had checked the embarking multitude and had ordered the vehicle to grow larger. It lay now across the field and over half a dozen near-by city streets. They had been cleared of people, and the growing vehicle had crushed the houses there into a wreckage of masonry. The end was near. The sun was twice its normal size. The glaring heat was horrible. Jain, with other officials, were demanding the start. "No! Not yet!" But Drake knew that not for very long could he force his way.